Posted September 12, 2010
I first got Riven over a decade ago when it was first released. I was very, very young back then and couldn't figure anything out, so I used a walkthrough. I remember loving the scenery and atmosphere but finding the puzzles too hard.
Ten years later I'd forgotten all the solutions to the puzzles and tried it again without a walkthrough. This time, over the course of a week, complete with fairly detailed note-taking, I managed to figure out the whole game on my own, and I can't even describe the feeling of euphoria that overtook me when I realized how all the pieces of the game fit together.
I've played a lot of puzzle games in my life--both computer games and board games and in general puzzle games of all types. And Riven is the best. I really believe Riven is in a way the very pinnacle of puzzles of all types.
The reason is that Riven is so rooted in human nature. The puzzles in Riven aren't arbitrary. If they involve machinery, that machinery was clearly placed by humans and used by humans. But a lot of them don't involve machinery. This is the novel feature that I've never seen any other puzzle successfully replicate: the puzzles in Riven require you to learn about the culture of a population of humans native to the islands you are on. Interaction with actual humans is very rare, but when it happens it packs a punch. But even without any humans on-screen you know you are in a world *built* by humans--there are countless traces of their culture all *over* the place, and none of it's arbitrary.
I won't spoil anything, but there are in a sense only two puzzles in this game, and solving these puzzles involves gradually piecing together the culture of the native people over the course of the game. To solve both puzzles means to have deciphered a significant portion of the culture. When you do this successfully, this is when that moment of euphoria will hit you--I bet you've never experienced this feeling from another video game.
The story is not very complex but it's very effective. Story-wise, the game provides you with small bits of information at a consistent and satisfying rate, often in the form of journals or letters. The story is very hands-off until the end, when you get the "pay-off"--a long and very compelling monologue by one of the game's characters, who will have been up to that point an utter mystery. To finally see his true personality is jolting.
The graphics are still gorgeous even so many years later. It might take a few minutes to get used to the point-and-click interface, but after just a bit you won't really even notice. It makes some of our new technology seem a bit silly.
And the music... oh, the music is very ambient for most of the game, but every once in a while, when you are in the presence of one of the game's major puzzles, it kicks in a little--still subtle, but just enough to give me shivers.
Riven is hands-down the best game of the Myst series. The designers haven't come close to replicating its charms in any of their subsequent offerings. I don't know if Riven was a stroke of genius or an incredible stroke of luck, but it doesn't really matter--at least it got made one way or the other!
Ten years later I'd forgotten all the solutions to the puzzles and tried it again without a walkthrough. This time, over the course of a week, complete with fairly detailed note-taking, I managed to figure out the whole game on my own, and I can't even describe the feeling of euphoria that overtook me when I realized how all the pieces of the game fit together.
I've played a lot of puzzle games in my life--both computer games and board games and in general puzzle games of all types. And Riven is the best. I really believe Riven is in a way the very pinnacle of puzzles of all types.
The reason is that Riven is so rooted in human nature. The puzzles in Riven aren't arbitrary. If they involve machinery, that machinery was clearly placed by humans and used by humans. But a lot of them don't involve machinery. This is the novel feature that I've never seen any other puzzle successfully replicate: the puzzles in Riven require you to learn about the culture of a population of humans native to the islands you are on. Interaction with actual humans is very rare, but when it happens it packs a punch. But even without any humans on-screen you know you are in a world *built* by humans--there are countless traces of their culture all *over* the place, and none of it's arbitrary.
I won't spoil anything, but there are in a sense only two puzzles in this game, and solving these puzzles involves gradually piecing together the culture of the native people over the course of the game. To solve both puzzles means to have deciphered a significant portion of the culture. When you do this successfully, this is when that moment of euphoria will hit you--I bet you've never experienced this feeling from another video game.
The story is not very complex but it's very effective. Story-wise, the game provides you with small bits of information at a consistent and satisfying rate, often in the form of journals or letters. The story is very hands-off until the end, when you get the "pay-off"--a long and very compelling monologue by one of the game's characters, who will have been up to that point an utter mystery. To finally see his true personality is jolting.
The graphics are still gorgeous even so many years later. It might take a few minutes to get used to the point-and-click interface, but after just a bit you won't really even notice. It makes some of our new technology seem a bit silly.
And the music... oh, the music is very ambient for most of the game, but every once in a while, when you are in the presence of one of the game's major puzzles, it kicks in a little--still subtle, but just enough to give me shivers.
Riven is hands-down the best game of the Myst series. The designers haven't come close to replicating its charms in any of their subsequent offerings. I don't know if Riven was a stroke of genius or an incredible stroke of luck, but it doesn't really matter--at least it got made one way or the other!